Greywolf - The Temple of Ghash-Kimil

Unlike the other pyramids of the Temple District, set in groups of four and only accessible by climbing long stairways leading to the top, the pyramid of Ghash-Kimil stands by itself without any stairs to be seen. It doesn't need any, because facing us is an entrance wide enough to drive a wagon through.

It's also guarded by a dozen skeletons watching us with grey orbs in their eye sockets. They haven't moved yet, which is good, as Kula addresses all three hundred of us in his booming voice. "Alright, listen sharp. Lys is going to cast a spell making us able to hear the voices of the restless dead, and when she does, I expect all of you to remember that you are warriors and not foolish children. Greywolf, being the fastest and strongest in the Shadowlands, will challenge the ones now watching us, and lure them into chasing him back to where we are standing. The Chosen, bearing Artifact weapons that work better here than normal steel, will defeat them far enough from the dead tree so that any priest watching will not be alerted to our presence. From there, we shall continue as planned. Questions?"

From the front rank of the Khanda swordsmen, Prince Timur says, "You should send Karl the Outlander as well, since he seems to be the only one the boy listens to."

Anger flares inside me as Karl drops his hand on my shoulder, giving me a knowing look. I clamp my mouth shut, though he knows from my expression I'm not happy about it, and he winks before looking up again. "I'll go to the edge of Twilight space and stop there, so the Chosen will know where it begins. How's that?"

"Acceptable," War-leader Kula grunts. "Lys?"

She leaps off Karl's shoulder and lands gracefully onto the stone pavers. "When we enter the temple," she calls out in her child-like voice, "do not attack the dead unless they attack first. Our business is with the living. Ready?" Without waiting for an answer, she speaks a few words in Latin as she pushes outward with her bone white hands.

A semi-circular wave washes over us, distorting the Shadowlands as it passes by. I don't hear anything except the Xian mercenaries muttering in their language- wait, yes I do. There's a wailing sound coming from the pyramid. "Someone doesn't sound too happy."

"A lot of somebodies, I'd say." Karl motions towards the pyramid. "After you."

I give him a sour smile and draw my katana. Karl falls into step beside me and we walk towards the pyramid, my nose testing the air for changes... nothing yet... wait, maybe? The dead air of the Shadowlands has the tang of the real world now, and I stop a stone's throw away from the pyramid, Karl doing the same. "Okay, this is the edge of Twilight space, more or less." Karl nods and I take a step forward.

He clamps a hand down on my shoulder. "No heroics, I'm serious."

"Are you jesting? They come down off that pyramid, I'm running like a rabbit."

Karl chuckles. "If they come down off the pyramid, I'll already be cowering behind Kula." He lets me go and I begin walking forward once more.

The dead are watching me. All the skeletons around the entrance are slowly moving, their inviting poses becoming more intent as I stop a short distance from the entrance, a yawning hole leading straight back. The Grey's given their bones sinews, though no flesh- Wotan's blood, they all look ready to pounce. Brace up! Tengri's Chosen and Kula himself are watching. A skeleton with a cracked skull is opening its mouth. "Why are you here?"

Its voice is a whisper on the wind, yet clear as a man speaking beside me. I brandish my katana. "My name is Greywolf, son of Ghostdog, and I'm here to kill all your priests."

Rustling bones as all the skeletons move into a crouch. "Will you tear out their hearts?"

"Cut out their throats?

"Rip out their entrails and burn them while the priests scream?"

"Yes, I will," I yell at them, waving the sword over my head with one hand. "I've come to destroy the priesthood of Ghash-Kimil."

Shite, oh shite, they're all leaning forward. They'll leap any moment, but I've got to wait until they move. The one with the cracked skull's opening its jaws. "Kill them all."

The rest of the dead are opening their jaws as well. "Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them all!" They're taking it up as a chant, over and over, the sound echoing off the stones of the temple.

I look back. Karl's staring at me, opened mouthed, and beyond him, the Chosen are lowering their weapons as they look back at Kula, who's watching me intently. Alright, you need to lead the way, so take a step inside. Now take another... the dead aren't going to leap on you, another step. The darkness is an illusion... another step.

I walk into the entrance of the temple. It's a stone passageway extending upwards at least three times a man's height, widening as it goes deeper inside. I turn around. Karl's still standing there, open mouthed as the dead continue their chant, and over their whispering voices I yell, "Come on."

Karl flinches, hesitates, then breaks into a run. The dead watch him, yet do nothing as he sprints inside. I lower the katana as he joins me. "Papa never told me the dead would do anything except attack you."

"Aye, it likely slipped his mind." Karl takes a deep breath as he rests his battle-axe against the wall and puts his fingers to his lips. His piercing whistle echoes off the walls. "There, Kula knows we're alright. Though how he's going to get everyone inside without the mercenaries panicking is beyond me." He gives me a sharp look as he picks the weapon back up. "You don't think they're luring us into a trap, do you?"

"They would've already attacked. Papa told me the dead don't reason like we do; they know what they knew in life, but they can't use trickery and they don't lie." I blink. "He couldn't have possibly known that if he couldn't speak to them. Why didn't he ever mention he could?"

"That likely slipped his mind as well." All at once, Karl laughs as he points outside. "Trust Kula to come up with something on the fly. Look." The Khandas swordsmen are forming into a Turtle like the formation he used earlier, but a strange one, all long and narrow...

"A tunnel. That's what he's forming." Sure enough, the Khandas are moving forward with shields out in all directions, including over their heads, the formation no wider than the entrance to the temple. "He's going to funnel everyone inside then collapse the formation from the outside in, so the mercenaries don't have to see the skeletons."

Karl's turning around to look inside. "That's why he's the War-" Karl breaks off and grips my arm. "Odin's bones." He lets me go and I whirl around.

A dead woman is standing less than a yard away in front of us. "You are right," she whispers, "the dead do not reason as you do. However, I am a special case." One eye is grey, the other rotted flesh, her teeth showing through holes in the skin of her jaw, while the hands sticking out from the ragged robes she's wearing are bone held together by grey sinews. "The dead believe what you tell them is truth, but I remember how the living lie. Are you truly here to destroy the priests of Ghash-Kimil?"

My throat's gone dry as dust. "I... yes, we're here to kill them all. I mean, I'm pretty sure we won't be able to burn anyone's entrails, but we can't leave any of them alive."

"Our mission will fail if we don't," Karl adds from behind me.

Wotan's blood, her smile's ghastly. "Then my suffering has not been in vain. I am Cermet, a priestess... was a priestess, of this temple, part of the sisterhood dedicated to the Necromantic Arts. We are... were, the sisters who protested the degradation of our worship at the hands of Muzen, High Priest of Yun-Kax. In response, those we trusted descended upon us across the empire like dogs. My body was defiled until death approached, and then I was thrown into a charnel pit to rot, denying me the clean death of stone knives under a new moon.

"But I am... was, a priestess of the Dark Arts, and as I felt death touch me, I reached out with my mind and gathered up as much power from the Grey as I could hold. Then cast the terrible spell of unlife upon myself, becoming the creature Ghash-Kimil warned us never to become. Tell me, Walker-in-the-shadows, do you know what it means to be a Lich?"

"He does not understand," Lys' voice calls out from behind me, "but I do." Glancing back, the Turtle formation has reached the entrance, and Lys is riding on Prince Timur's shoulder as he approaches. He stops, an expression of fear on his face as she hops off. "My prince, pass the word back to hold up for a little bit. One way or another this should not take long." Timur seems more than happy to do so, his face back in a snarling mask as he begins giving orders to the warriors in their harsh language.

I'm more than happy to step to the side with Karl, both of us with our backs against the stone wall as Lys walks up in front of the dead woman. The eyebrows on her rotted out face lift in surprise. "This cannot be. Fae of the Necromantic Arts are all supposed to have been destroyed by their sisters."

"It was a near thing," Lys replies. "I never realized humans could undergo the same rite-of-passage that I plan to undertake when my death approaches."

That ghastly smile again. "Ghash-Kimil taught us the rite as a way of raising Revenants that are stronger than the raised dead, but forbade us to ever us it upon ourselves. Woe be unto them, Ghash-Kimil, for all of my sisterhood knows this rite, and a few are... were, strong enough to use it. If they dared."

Lys has a calculating expression on her face as she folds her stick thin arms across her armored chest. "What is it you want, priestess? Revenge on these priests and on Muzen? Because you will have it once we are done."

Tangled black hair whips about as she shakes her head. "Revenge upon both is not enough. I want revenge upon Ghash-Kimil themselves."

"I thought you might." Lys glances back to where Prince Timur has rejoined us, his face a stoic mask as he keeps himself well back, and lowers her voice. "I serve Khan Khingla now, who only desires peace with the Sasnayams, yet if his son Timur should become Khan after the old man's death, he will declare war upon them by any and all means. If he does, then I will return to help you out of the charnel pit, and together-"

"No, Fae of the Dark Arts, you need my help now if you wish this attack to succeed. Corpse-eater beetles have become my eyes and ears as I wait patiently down in the charnel pits, and now that you are here, certain things I heard from them are finally making sense. The temple priests and the Fae of Winter will easily fall into your hands, but once you leave this temple, the night will end in disaster... unless you pull me out of the charnel pits and command me to serve you."

Lys' expression has turned suspicious. "Yrg is here?"

"She is with most of the priests in a secret room, gorging herself upon an acolyte sacrificed for the other temple's ambitions. The few remaining priests are tormenting a priestess-spy of the Temple of Ix-Chel, who was caught waiting near the tentacles of the Grey, gathered into the form of a tree."

I suck in my breath. "Is it Ishi?"

The dead woman shrugs. "Perhaps. The two Revenants holding her are being controlled by two priests, and they will not attack until you have restored your group back into the real world. Be ready, though, for once you roll back the Grey, they will turn on you, Walker-in-the-shadows, whether the priests controlling them are alive or dead."

"When we control the temple," Yrg asks, "what will happen?"

"Once I am free of the charnel pits and have become your servant, ask me that question again and I will answer."

"You will not fight me for control?"

"No, Fae of the Dark Arts, I will not. I live... unlive, to serve, just as you do."

The calculating look returns to Lys' face. "Show me where this secret room is, then the way to the charnel pits."

"Shadow Fae," Kula's harsh voice says from behind us, "you don't mean to bind this foul creature and bring it back to our encampment, do you?"

War-leader Kula's standing beside Prince Timur, the scowl on his face growing deeper as Lys turns around and puts her hands on her fragile-looking hips. "If binding this priestess means the difference between Khan Khingla getting the kingdom he wants and the death of his dream, then I will not hesitate. Once she becomes my servant, she will follow my commands and do nothing on her own." Lys waves her stick thin arm in the dead woman's direction. "She will not even smell once I renew the preservation spell."

"It would be a good thing to be clean again and not dressed in rags."

I give her an incredulous look. "But... you're dead."

She turns to look at me and I try not to shudder at the rotted out face. "Dead or not, Lich or not, I am still a woman." She turns towards Lys. "Come, I will show you the secret room, and then the pits."

"I will come as well," Kula growls. "Prince Timur, investigate the area where the dead tree is, and don't let Greywolf put us back into the real world until I give the signal." Prince Timur nods and turns towards those behind us. "Bring everyone into the pyramid but remain on the ground level until I begin giving orders. Titan, bring Avitohol's blood brother and follow me."

In the corridor, harsh voices begin giving orders as Titan moves into view with the young boy with him, the two of them joining Kula as Lys leaps up onto Karl's shoulder. Cermet is already walking along a side corridor towards a set of stairs leading down into the earth. As Karl and Lys follow, with the other three behind, Amazonia and her men join the prince, along with his two Bloodguards. "Shadow-walker," he says in a gruff voice, "do you know where this dead tree is?" I motion farther down the corridor with the tip of my katana, and he sneers, "Can I trust you to lead us to it and not do something that will get us all killed?"

"I'm not stupid," I snap back at him.

Shite, he's smiling. He just wanted to get a rise out of me. "Others may believe you aren't, but I know the truth. Lead the way... if you can."

Keep your temper, don't let him goad you into something stupid. I start down the corridor without seeing if they're following or not, though the sounds of sandals scraping on stone and muffled cursing have begun behind me as well. There's more side passages leading to stairs going down into the earth, but the scent of the Grey is getting stronger the deeper into the temple we go. Just ahead, the passage widens into a square chamber, with shadowy figures standing around dozens of grey tentacles like questing snakes, all pushed together into the shape of a large plant as tall as Titan. The tendrils in the center of the chamber are active, and as I enter the room, they move their free ends toward me as much as they can until all point in my direction. "What in Hades' name is that?"

I glance back at Amazonia. "That's what the tree looks like from the inside. The tendrils won't hurt you if you touch one, since you're already in the Shadowlands, but it will feel strange." Two dead men are standing on the far side of the chamber, but they're moving as slowly as the shadowy men in robes around them, their ugly faces filled with unholy glee at the woman being gripped by dead hands. They seem to be ripping off her clothing as she screams. I move around them to get a look at the woman's face. "It's Ishi, just like I thought."

Prince Timur calls out, "Will the dead come to life like the others did?"

I shake my head as I begin giving the two a closer look. "They would've already done so." The two have a shadowy nature the dead never have in the Grey, letting me see the faint lines of power inside them. "In the Shadowlands, the dead normally have sinews given to them by the Grey, but these have sinews that are black. I wonder..." I spend a bit of time examining the men in robes while the others talk in low voices among themselves.

As I crouch down beside one of the priests, as they have to be, Amazonia crouches down beside me. "What do you see?"

With the tip of the katana, I trace a thick black line inside the shadowy figure. "Do you see this? It's the core of power that shows up whenever someone's using magic. If you look close," tracing it down one arm to his hand, "the power extends outward to one of the dead men."

Amazonia frowns. "I don't see any lines connecting the two."

"We won't, because when the power leaves the mage's hand it goes out like a spray, making the lines too faint to see. But look here," Amazonia standing up beside me as I rise, "to where his heart is. Do you see the faint lines extending outward?"

She leans in close. "They look grey."

"That's right." I don't bother to keep the excitement out of my voice at this new discovery. "The mana nodes on the man's heart are drawing in power from the Grey, which then gets converted somehow into power he can use." I look up at her. "This proves Lys was absolutely right."

"Speaking of Lys," Dancer calls out from the entrance to the chamber, "Karl's coming."

All of us turn towards the chamber opening as the slap of sandals on stone grows louder. "My prince," Karl says as he gets close, "everyone's in position. I'm to yell out the countdown once you're ready."

Was that a flash of embarrassment I just saw on Prince Timur's face? "All of you choose someone to kill," he snarls, "and make sure you get them on the first thrust or swing. Karl, did you find Yrg?"

"She's in a room surrounded by laughing priests, eating a bald guy's liver as he screams." Karl shakes his head. "Lys has been waiting a long time for this day." I position myself beside the tendrils while Amazonia directs the others until everyone's weapon is pointed at a robed priest. "Greywolf, you ready?"

I nod. "How is anyone going to hear you?"

"Cermet's got that covered. Okay, here we go. Four..."

From all over the temple, the dead call back, "Four..."

Karl goes silent as the voices continue, "Three..."

"Two... One..."

Karl yells, "Now," and I put my hand onto the mass of tendrils as I pull us back into the real world.